Anvil kettles upward inlet?

[javert]

Hi.

Minor question: I've ordered three 20 gal anvil kettles to up the batch size since the brand gave me some confidence. However, I didn't notice but these kettles only have a bottom hole and ball valve for emptying them but doesn't have any hole and valve up near the top for filling them. There's only a small hole on the lids which is probably used for the airlock when used as fermenters.

Since the plan is to feed the mash tun from the HLT and the boiling kettle from the mash tun. I'm a little clueless about how they were supposed to be used. Do I need to bore a hole and add a valve to the mash and boiling kettle onl my own? Or is there another way they were meant to be used so that isn't necessary?

 

[day_trippr]

Unless you're going to recirculate your mash [edit: or fly sparge, I suppose] you don't really need more than a drain valve on the MLT.
Just underlet the strike volume. It has magical benefits - you can give your mash paddle away if done properly and it knocks the O2 out of the grain bed in the offing. For batch sparging you can then underlet the sparge liquor, use your spoon to give the mash a good stir, then drain it to the BK...

Cheers!

 

[coolitfast]

Hi Javert,

We had that same issue a few months back and ended up creating a new product called The Hangover. It's basically a clip on NPT port with vertical and horizontal slots for mounting just about any 1/2" fitting you can think of. This has made things like recirculating, sparging, whirlpooling etc. pretty easy for us. The Hangover might be a solution for your issue as it is also easy to move from kettle to kettle (making upgrades easy too).